From George Orwell's Notes on Nationalism (well worth reading in it's entirety):

All nationalists have the power of not seeing resemblances between similar sets of facts. A British Tory will defend self-determination in Europe and oppose it in India with no feeling of inconsistency. Actions are held to be good or bad, not on their own merits, but according to who does them, and there is almost no kind of outrage — torture, the use of hostages, forced labour, mass deportations, imprisonment without trial, forgery, assassination, the bombing of civilians — which does not change its moral colour when it is committed by ‘our’ side. The Liberal News Chronicle published, as an example of shocking barbarity, photographs of Russians hanged by the Germans, and then a year or two later published with warm approval almost exactly similar photographs of Germans hanged by the Russians(5). It is the same with historical events. History is thought of largely in nationalist terms, and such things as the Inquisition, the tortures of the Star Chamber, the exploits of the English buccaneers (Sir Francis Drake, for instance, who was given to sinking Spanish prisoners alive), the Reign of Terror, the heroes of the Mutiny blowing hundreds of Indians from the guns, or Cromwell's soldiers slashing Irishwomen's faces with razors, become morally neutral or even meritorious when it is felt that they were done in the ‘right’ cause. If one looks back over the past quarter of a century, one finds that there was hardly a single year when atrocity stories were not being reported from some part of the world; and yet in not one single case were these atrocities — in Spain, Russia, China, Hungary, Mexico, Amritsar, Smyrna — believed in and disapproved of by the English intelligentsia as a whole. Whether such deeds were reprehensible, or even whether they happened, was always decided according to political predilection. The nationalist not only does not disapprove of atrocities committed by his own side, but he has a remarkable capacity for not even hearing about them. For quite six years the English admirers of Hitler contrived not to learn of the existence of Dachau and Buchenwald. And those who are loudest in denouncing the German concentration camps are often quite unaware, or only very dimly aware, that there are also concentration camps in Russia. Huge events like the Ukraine famine of 1933, involving the deaths of millions of people, have actually escaped the attention of the majority of English russophiles. Many English people have heard almost nothing about the extermination of German and Polish Jews during the present war. Their own antisemitism has caused this vast crime to bounce off their consciousness. In nationalist thought there are facts which are both true and untrue, known and unknown. A known fact may be so unbearable that it is habitually pushed aside and not allowed to enter into logical processes, or on the other hand it may enter into every calculation and yet never be admitted as a fact, even in one's own mind.
Every nationalist is haunted by the belief that the past can be altered. He spends part of his time in a fantasy world in which things happen as they should — in which, for example, the Spanish Armada was a success or the Russian Revolution was crushed in 1918 — and he will transfer fragments of this world to the history books whenever possible. Much of the propagandist writing of our time amounts to plain forgery. Material facts are suppressed, dates altered, quotations removed from their context and doctored so as to change their meaning. Events which it is felt ought not to have happened are left unmentioned and ultimately denied(6). In 1927 Chiang Kai Shek boiled hundreds of Communists alive, and yet within ten years he had become one of the heroes of the Left. The re-alignment of world politics had brought him into the anti-Fascist camp, and so it was felt that the boiling of the Communists ‘didn't count’, or perhaps had not happened. The primary aim of propaganda is, of course, to influence contemporary opinion, but those who rewrite history do probably believe with part of their minds that they are actually thrusting facts into the past. When one considers the elaborate forgeries that have been committed in order to show that Trotsky did not play a valuable part in the Russian civil war, it is difficult to feel that the people responsible are merely lying. More probably they feel that their own version was what happened in the sight of God, and that one is justified in rearranging the records accordingly.
Indifference to objective truth is encouraged by the sealing-off of one part of the world from another, which makes it harder and harder to discover what is actually happening. There can often be a genuine doubt about the most enormous events. For example, it is impossible to calculate within millions, perhaps even tens of millions, the number of deaths caused by the present war. The calamities that are constantly being reported — battles, massacres, famines, revolutions — tend to inspire in the average person a feeling of unreality. One has no way of verifying the facts, one is not even fully certain that they have happened, and one is always presented with totally different interpretations from different sources. What were the rights and wrongs of the Warsaw rising of August 1944? Is it true about the German gas ovens in Poland? Who was really to blame for the Bengal famine? Probably the truth is discoverable, but the facts will be so dishonestly set forth in almost any newspaper that the ordinary reader can be forgiven either for swallowing lies or failing to form an opinion. The general uncertainty as to what is really happening makes it easier to cling to lunatic beliefs. Since nothing is ever quite proved or disproved, the most unmistakable fact can be impudently denied. Moreover, although endlessly brooding on power, victory, defeat, revenge, the nationalist is often somewhat uninterested in what happens in the real world. What he wants is to feel that his own unit is getting the better of some other unit, and he can more easily do this by scoring off an adversary than by examining the facts to see whether they support him. All nationalist controversy is at the debating-society level. It is always entirely inconclusive, since each contestant invariably believes himself to have won the victory. Some nationalists are not far from schizophrenia, living quite happily amid dreams of power and conquest which have no connection with the physical world.

What's wrong with this picture....I watched Shep and liked it just like wkmac & D.

That's just weird !!

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Moreluck,

I'm willing to bet that what struck you about Shep's comments was where he adamantly and correctly stated, "This is America!" IMO, what Shep said was something we forgot as a result of the shock from 9/11. God, 200 plus years ago, IMO gave us a gift that he doesn't often do across the span of time and even though we have our warts, the foundation and principles of that wonderful gift is still there. Question is, will we reach back out for it again or will we reject this gift and choose a path more the norm of human history?

Notice when you hear pro-torture proponents argue their case, the word torture is substituted with "enhanced interrogations"

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Good observation D. What really bugs me about gov't and this is a non-partisan issue IMO but all gov't leaders and even non-gov't leaders across society all have speech specialist and PR people/lawyers working for them. Their job is to parse words and craft words for these people to use in public.

My question is this, when did straight up truth ever need such things?

Speaking of torture, President Obama may be showing his political moxy and I'm impressed. First, President Obama releases photos concerning torture abuse allegations but then the next day (today) we see he opposes a "Truth Commission" on this issue.

The first article poses this question in response to it all.

The photo release decision comes as President Barack Obama is already trying to quell a drive to investigate Bush-era anti-terror practices. But now the photos and a series of other possible disclosures stemming from the ACLU lawsuit threatens to fuel the already explosive controversy.

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Has President Obama learned the Washington game of building a demand before launching the product line? Once done, he can clearly have the high road in saying he's giving the people what they want. Why do I see Rahm and Wag the Dog all in this? IMO, this is classic Clintonism. Pretty smart if that proves to be the case.

Also, the Truth Commission is more a Congressional device and would show the Congress as being the provider to the power of truth. President Obama's plan may be to circumvent that focus and position the WH in the eyes of the people as being the harbinger of truth and therefore the people would look to the Presidency for all things. I see the Unitary Executive theory didn't die when Bush left Washington. Again, so much for change!

If this is the case, the man has done his homework and just might score a touchdown with a gimmick play that catches everyone by surprise.

Waterboarding isn't torture. I've had quite a few soldiers, several Sailors, and a Marine personally tell me that they've been waterboarded as part of their training. So, I guess its a training technique to keep our special ops troops from drowning from panic and torture at the same time? LOL! It's not a surprise that most of the people in this country that consider torture are leftists. These are the same people that thinks that raising your voice to a terrorist is torture. Wake up people! We've been doing these things for years. It's not like we are cutting fingers off or skinning these people alive.

Oh by the way.....terrorists don't fall under the Geneva Convention and therefore aren't protected by the same rules that apply to lawful prisoners of war.

Waterboarding isn't torture. I've had quite a few soldiers, several Sailors, and a Marine personally tell me that they've been waterboarded as part of their training. So, I guess its a training technique to keep our special ops troops from drowning from panic and torture at the same time? LOL! It's not a surprise that most of the people in this country that consider torture are leftists. These are the same people that thinks that raising your voice to a terrorist is torture. Wake up people! We've been doing these things for years. It's not like we are cutting fingers off or skinning these people alive. I can sort of agree with this.

Oh by the way.....terrorists don't fall under the Geneva Convention and therefore aren't protected by the same rules that apply to lawful prisoners of war.

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I understand what you're saying, because they're not an "army", persay. It's hard for people to see this view, though. Terrorists are like gang members. You can bomb/beat the smack out of them, but they'll keep coming back at you. You can never let your guard down. This is what must be combatted, so how do you win against people that think this way?

I understand what you're saying, because they're not an "army", persay. It's hard for people to see this view, though. Terrorists are like gang members. You can bomb/beat the smack out of them, but they'll keep coming back at you. You can never let your guard down. This is what must be combatted, so how do you win against people that think this way?

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Appease them I guess. That seems to be the road we are headed down now.

You can waterboard me as a test if you like, after all if Im an enemy now I will know the exact amount of time I have to put up with it, and I KNOW I wont be killed. Wow thats scary. Its not like we are going to cut off their heads or their genitals.
I dont see it as torture, sorry. I see it as a last resort to get info that saves OUR lives. But it will no longer work, so.....................

You can waterboard me as a test if you like, after all if Im an enemy now I will know the exact amount of time I have to put up with it, and I KNOW I wont be killed. Wow thats scary. Its not like we are going to cut off their heads or their genitals.
I dont see it as torture, sorry. I see it as a last resort to get info that saves OUR lives. But it will no longer work, so.....................

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Well, hey....liberals have always been willing to weaken their own country to prove a point.

What we need to do is invade Muslim countries. Doing so will win their hearts and minds.

We need to use our military for everything but defending our actual borders. It is better that we defend other countries borders instead.

We need to allow immigration from countries whose populations have a known hatred for us. Then, we should do our very best not to check on said immigrants.

Finally, we need to support a country, to the tune of billions of dollars of aid a year, that will not let a significant portion of people under their control to have complete self determination. Or allow these same people to return to the land of their birth.

Damn, we are already doing all these things I suggested. Why aren't the terrorists stopping?

Oh wait, terrorists only kill for the thrill of it, they never have reasons. I guess what we really must do, since the majority of them seem to be of this religious persuasion, is take out all the Muslims. It may be our only hope.

Jones, your Orwell post started me thinking about wkmac's thread (Interesting Thoughts To Ponder on this Most Special of Days!) were I took umbrage at what I viewed as a slight at Catholicism in particular, but more importantly, Western civilization in general.

In Orwell's statement about nationalism, I think one can find what might be the fatal flaw of our civilization. It is not our culture, per se, but our actions that suggest we believe that no one is entitled to it but ourselves.

Our heritage of liberal democracy, human rights, and the rule of law are not fundamental flaws but universal strengths. The problem is, we frequently act as if these concepts really only apply to ourselves. Hence, we find no problems in exploiting another non Western country's labor and environment in ways we find totally unacceptable for ourselves.

Our culture will continue to be the world's scapegoat until we address this reality.